fresh kutz, food and frustration…

A friend of mine and I made the 1177 mile trek from da burgh to the Magic City last week. Left Thursday, drove about 12 hours down and stopped in Myrtle Beach at her godmother’s house for Friday. Got back in the car on Saturday and drove down to my hotel across from the hospital complex.

The ride was smooth and enjoyable. The car was PACKED! On Sunday we met up with her friends and their families at Dave and Buster’s. That was cool to meet up with some folk who live in FL. I took her to Ft Lauderdale airport on Monday. Since then it’s been driving around–apt hunting, watching television and being in general anxious.

I finally found an apt yesterday–a small apt in a not so great neighborhood but they’re only asking $750 up front with $850 when I move in next Wednesday and then $200 for July rent. The rent is $750 and I’ll start paying it in full for August rent. The neighborhood is working class black immigrants so it shouldn’t be too bad. The other area that I was looking in is Liberty City–which I’ve been informed is a BAAAD area. The nicer areas want too much money up front, so I’ll stay in this lease for 7 months–providing me the opportunity to save up some cash for a better apt in a nicer area. The fact that I have to give them a money order to pay my rent…….

I decided to get my hair cut so I popped into this barber salon on NW 7th and 123rd. There were two black guys and and latina. The one–Erick–cut my hair. I know have about 1/3 the hair I had when I came down here to the Magic City. It feels good to be so fresh. It’s too hot down here to have the big fro. Maybe when I’ve gotten accustomed to the area I’ll grow my hair big. Erick is lock’d, has gold on his lower teetch and originally from the big apple but has been in the city for a while. When we talked about apts he informed me that neither he nor the other barber live in the vicinity of the shop but further south. He also informed me multiple times that I had a pretty smile–that was nice of him. He was a generally nice guy and that was good for me ’cause I’ve been feeling kind of lost lately. He promised to hook me up with the local poetry scene since one of his friends is a poet. He’s got my number so hopefully I’ll find some nice people to hang out with while I’m adjusticating.

Fast fried food is ridiculously cheap down here. Brunch today was Church’s Chicken where for only 3.95 I got a chicken sandwich, three poppers, fries, a drink and a biscuit. This would explain how people get so thick here. I’ve taken to eating about once a day to conserve gas and cash.

Dirving is stressful and not for the reasons I originally thought. I thought people would just speed around me like Nascar racers. Surprisingly, most people drive at a decent pace–it’s all the legal U-turns, lack of signalling, merging super fast into your lane and roads that get me. I’m getting the hang of U-turns but I’ve gotten lost quite a few times driving around looking for streets, avenues and terraces. Miami is grided N-S, E-W; so that makes it much more easy to navigate. What isn’t easy is that all of the roads are numbered so there are multiple 14ths–14th Terrace, 14th St, 14th Ave and there’s NE, SE, NW, SW too. That’s gonna take me some time to figure out.

I miss all my friends up north and watching Will and Grace for the past few days isn’t making it any better. The hotel is supposed to have 40 or so channels but for some reason they can’t program the stations on some of the televisions so I get about 12 channels. I know for some people that would be extravagant but for the amount of money I paid for that room–well, I better be getting some more channels soon gosh darn it! Then there’s the lack of microwave. The first one harbored ants–not a good thing. I haven’t gotten another one since I had them take it back. Again-reiteration–for the amount of money I’m spending, well, I shouldn’t have to settle for no microwave.

There’s a Nigerian shop a couple of doors down from the barber salon. One of the ladies there is from Togo and we chatted briefly and exchanged numbers today after the cut. She seems nice but we’ll see.

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I’m currently changing services online. I’ve changed my address, disconnected the electric, found the number to call Verizon to disconnect my service, found Comcast and Bellsouth to figure out phone/cable/dsl.

Tomorrow I have to do more JMH stuff–figure out my banking/credit union, get logged into the system and schedule my physical.